By Jo Gifford CareerUsing twitter for time effective networking11 Apr 2016 Twitter is a really powerful platform. With an incredible 320 million users worldwide, 80% of which use the platform via mobile, it really is an effective medium on which to network on the go.So, with such a vast user base, and an average of 6,000 tweets sent per second (watch the numbers live, right here), making the most of Twitter for effective networking might seem overwhelming. With the right tools and strategies, you can cut through the noise, interact, learn, broadcast and add value with greater impact. Follow these nine tips to be more productive, connected, and time efficient on Twitter to make the most of the global network.ListsLists are such a handy tool for making sense of the conversations on Twitter. You can curate lists of people to follow for a range of factors, and make the lists public and visible, or private, according to your preference.Sorting lists by subject matter, influencers, media, interests and relevance means that you can very quickly navigate to a relevant stream of tweets and work from there.Use your lists to:– Re-tweet content– Interact with people– Find new content to share– Conduct research– Join conversations– Collate information for later use for blog posts, other social media platforms, or simply to bookmark for reference.You can also subscribe to lists curated by other Twitter users, making it even easier to search for relevant conversations that you can join in with.MomentsTwitter moments was an additional feature added in 2015 to enable users to immediately see the big stories and trending news articles, trivia, and updates. Moments are collated by theme, such as celebrity, news, weather, and fun tweets. They are a great way to scan what is happening on Twitter very quickly, to see the tweets related to that subject, and to take part in the conversation where relevant. Find out more about moments and how to interact with them right here.Make your bio work for youYour Twitter bio is the place where you make those 160 characters count. They can help you to attract more followers, be found in searches, and to invite conversations and interactions.Sprout Social identifies some key outcomes to aim for with your Twitter bio, to be:– Informative– Personable– Strategic– Action orientatedGive consideration to the best landing page for your followers to click on as a next action, and consider relevant hashtags to use in your bio (but avoid using too many or your bio becomes hard to read!) If you are stuck for ideas, this fun Twitter bio generator has some amusing starting points.Work in chunksStay focussed, productive, and on target when you use Twitter. A handy tip to help with this is to work in small chunks, and use a timer. This helps to focus your attention, and limits the temptation to fall down the many rabbit holes of information that the web has to offer. The Pomodoro technique advocates working in small bursts of 25 minutes, and timers such as this free Tomato Timer can help to keep you on track.Hashtag searchSearching for hashtags relevant to your industry, events, key figures and news is a fast way to view conversations happening around that subject. Tools such as Hootsuite make it easy to view and monitor streams of conversations based on a particular hashtag.BufferBuffer is an excellent tool which easily allows you to pre-schedule content at times predetermined by you.In this way, you can read, collate and share information on Twitter in effective, productive, time chunks. Buffer also allows you to view statistical data related to your updates, to continually evolve and improve your content for your audience subject to optimal post times, content type, and subject.Go visualVisual content is extremely powerful. 93% of human conversation is non-verbal, and in the fast moving, saturated world of social media, impact is essential. In fact, on Twitter, tweets with visuals get shared a startling 150% more than those without visuals. There are many tools to help you easily create visual content, such as Canva, Share As Image and PicMonkey. You can also use Skitch to take screengrabs and annotate them for visual content.Work smarterWorking smarter means you can really get Twitter to work for you, alongside some other apps, to maximise your time and your networking focus. IFTTT is an incredible tool that can be used in many different ways for Twitter.Some of my favourite ways to use it are to:– Store favourited tweets to a Google Doc, Evernote, or to Pocket– Keep a log of all my tweets in a Google Doc– Send instagram images as native Twitter images– Save tweets with specific hashtags to Evernote or a Google Doc– Send starred Tweets to Buffer to re-tweet laterThere are many more combinations of apps, triggers and ways to use Twitter with other platforms automatically, and it is well worth experimenting with some basic recipes to make the most of your time and efficiency.Most of all… networkAbove all else, Twitter is a network to do exactly that – network. Do ensure that you spend some time engaging with your followers, finding new people to follow, and that you take part in conversations. With some key practices in place, Twitter can be a critical and time effective addition to your marketing efforts. Jo Gifford mentors solopreneurs to tell their business story online and to work in smarter, creative ways on www.dexterousdiva.co.uk.